Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Thanks for your coats

The coat drive on Sunday was a rousing success. Steph had a personal goal for herself to collect 30 coats. She collected 120 coats plus $200 from the night's sales. Not too shabby for something she and Danielle threw together only a couple weeks ago. People just kept showing up dropping off coats. It was really wonderful. I'll admit it, it gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling.

At one point, Matt and I were talking to Steph as she was organizing the coats, and Matt saw a guy carrying a video camera walking across the street toward us. He goes, "Steph, is that guy with the video camera here with you?" Steph said, "Oh God no." Ten seconds later, the guy walked into the bar and asked for the person in charge of the coat drive. After he was directed to Steph, he walked up and said, "Hi there. Can I get some shots of you organizing the coats?" Matt and I ran away so fast I swear you could see a smoke trail. The guy ended up being from the local news. He saw one of Steph's flyers and wanted to come do a story on it. He was there for a while and interviewed Steph for a long time. The best part about that was that since it was a holiday weekend, they didn't have enough reporters. He didn't want Steph to be looking directly at the camera while she was talking so he had Danielle stand next to her holding the mic as if she was the reporter. To all of us, it looked like they were little kids just playing news reporter*.

The news story that aired ended up being roughly 15 seconds long with none of Steph's interview shown. Just shots of her organizing the coats. There were also some crowd shots the guy had taken. He walked into the bar and turned on the camera, and I was like, "Everyone suck it in!" Diane was in the middle of reenacting what it looked like on Saturday when Sharda and her were essentially inhaling tortilla chips so she quickly stopped and made a weird face. Then we all started fake laughing and looking like we were having just an absolutely fabulous time having a fabulous conversation because we are just fabulous people with fabulous lives. Later on the news, all you saw was Diane's weird face. Awesome. She wasn't worried about it really, though, because she was way in the back, and it was dark and only people who knew she was there would notice. This morning at work, someone asked her if she was on the news. I love life.

One last thing about the coat drive: Steph and Christy had invited some guy they met Friday night. Steph introduced him to me, "Sarah, this is Eric. Can you take him inside and introduce him to people?" So I did. I introduced him to maybe 15 people. "Hey, guys, this is Eric. He's in town on business." Yesterday Steph was looking at the sign-in sheet. His name is not Eric. It sounds like Eric, but it is not. That. is. awesome. It's fine-he was totally creepy anyway.

P.S. I'm at home right now watching the inauguration coverage. I have never seen so many people in one place. People who have traveled hundreds of miles and are standing so far away from the action in the freezing cold and literally do not care. It's unreal. People are really emotional, and it's making me emotional. Except one lady has a sign that says "Arrest Bush", and that disappoints me. Shouldn't we spend today looking forward instead of back? I mean isn't that the whole point? Come on lady. You can come up with a better sign than that. How about "Hi Mom!"?

P.P.S. What is happening to Chester Cheeto? Remember when he was a cute cartoon? Why is he a terrifying animatronic thing come to life?

*You know how when you're little, vocations are games. I want to play teacher. I want to play banker. I want to play Quality Analyst for the Production Assurance department of a large corporation. I know we've all played that last one.

Simple: Don't watch, don't bother, don't care and you won't get "emotional". And don't look at the front page of any of the browsers online. Seriously, enough is enough.

In the long run it doesn't matter anyway. Since the system itself is broken, the man doesn't matter. Even those whom are upstanding soon become corrupted by the inherent flaws within the system.

Hell, your vote doesn't even count in this Representative Republic (not a democracy - no matter how long people howl that it is). Check out the workings of the electoral college, the folks who *really* elect the prez.

One final thought - I love my country, served over a dozen years to protect our freedoms (those that remain), am neither a repub nor a dem, but I seriously consider searching out and punching in the face the next group that tries to sell me an Obama plate/pin/photo. Way to take something that might become historic (unproven at the moment, just another man who has gotten elected to office) and cheese it up. *sarcastic applause*

Hey Sarah - just wanted to let you know that your Service Day post inspired me to do something in my neighborhood. Saturday, my neighbor and I collected a HUGE barrel of food for the Harvesters food bank. PLUS I met some of my crazy neighbors. WIN all around...